Marine tank fish only

mr_tap_water

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
It wasn't meant that way it was sounded it just say it sounds like you've gone in the deep end and there's a lot to correct I myself is willing to help and I am no expert along with others just seems that you took on a lot that's all.[emoji846]


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Aliasger

New Member
sorry, i was just frustrated!! Ok the deal is, i didn't start up like this. Actually i am taking care of 2 tanks but unable to solve the problems my client did. He, let's say wanted his tank to be filled with lots of fish at once. This was not i had imagined nor i had planned, before everything was ok but he kept ordering the fish and i kept saying him no no no and now as always client's never takes a blame and i am stuck up.

So can we move now please, coz i need to know where is the prob exactly ??!!
 
mr_tap_water

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
Because of the sheer size of those tanks going to type a lot of work to get corrected and very hard for some of us just going by what you're saying, need to go back to the beginning get a better understanding, first of all what is the condition of the rest of your fish would it be possible to have a few pictures of your Systems,
If I was in your shoes I would first do a full set of test and then correct them all as soon as possible and get every piece of equipment up and running properly including the calcium reactor, protein skimmer along with having a good clean out, Will give you a fresh start if you have a biological media it wouldn't hurt to give it a boost with a bio booster to help cope with the amount of fish that has gone in to quickly for your biological filter to handle, I myself would also do some very big water charges and keep doing them until things settle i'm not sure whether you use a synthetic salt or natural seawater so could be expensive but that is to be expected when you have large systems, your going to have to spend to get things right especially if you want 400 fish plus and depending on the size Will create lots of waste so your biological System will have to work hard.
Please note this is just the way I would try to correct things. And probably is many other Ways of doing it, if not better.[emoji846]


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Aliasger

New Member
Well, according to me the only problem i faced was when i added fish without quarantine that created trouble for me . Salinity, nitrite, nitrate, phosphates where at lower levels. Secondly, not all of my fish are sick, only few. The question is if at all my parameters were low in case of Ca, Mg and alkalinity how can the fish survive? I mean yes when i added whole lot of fish at once my CO2 level shooted up lowering the buffering capacity n also bacterial load. I m getting few more of live bacteria and will keep adding it till it stabilize. Doing water change daily but very less. As i don't have enough salt plus i got one quarantine tank and a medical tank to look after. Once i start calcium reactor may be then i would come to know what will be the exact readings. I mean with 300 ppm my fish are doing good. I just have fish and nothing else. Waiting for itself to stabilise on its own. Because too much of any chemical might again imbalance. What say??!!
 
mr_tap_water

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
In my opinion really all boils down to good water quality equals healthy fish if you get that in place The rest should follow.
And I suppose depending on individual fish that are affected with some sort of disease/ parasite just take those ones out and treat them, The only problem is it doesn't mean the rest won't catch anything depending on what in the water column already hopefully if you can get the water quality back up The fish might be able to fight off any unwonted bacteria/parasites on their own.
all so it be worth looking into reducing the amount of fish you have this will help with your PH along with adding some good water movement on the surface to help with gas exchange.


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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Aliasger said:
Hi,
For one tank
The readings are as follows;
pH 8.00
KH 5dKh
NH4 : <0.05ppm
Nitrite: 0.1
Nitrate: 10ppm
Phosphate: 0.6mg/l
Calcium is 300ppm
Mg is 900ppm

I know phosphate is high, but i haven't got any algal bloom in the tank.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the additional information.

The ammonia reading may not be a problem, as some test kits will always show a slight reading even if the actual reading is 0.

Nitrite at .1 is a problem, and this means the tank is going to need to cycle further. I would not add any more fish until this goes to 0.

Before messing with KH, Calcium and Mg, what is the SG of your water? If that is low it will skew the other readings a lot. So we want to be sure that the salinity is correct first.
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Aliasger said:
Manually?? That would be like too much? As it is 4000 gallons. That too 2 tanks. If calcium and alkalinity is low cant we just use reactor and increase both simultaneously. As i will be using dead coral skeleton.
Click to expand...

When you need to make big changes in calcium, alkalinity and magnesium in large tanks, you generally use dry chemicals, mix them with water and add them slowly back to the system. Be very careful with doing this, since if it's not done correctly it can be dangerous. Typically calcium chloride and magnesium chloride are used to boost calcium and magnesium. Using these methods should be though of as a one time thing to get the initial readings with in range.

Before starting, be sure your salinity is correct. This is most important.
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Aliasger said:
SG values are 1.022
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This is a bit low. It should be about 1.025. That doesn't sound like much, but it's skewing your calcium and magnesium reading by about 14%. That calcium reading of 300 ppm would read about 340 if you corrected the SG. The magnesium reading of 1000 would read about 1136. Your not quite as bad off here as it would seem. It's still low though.

This brings up another question, what brand of salt are you using? Some salts mix to low numbers.
 
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Aliasger

New Member
Tell me something, if i don't increase the calcium, mg and keep it as it is ?? will it affect anything ?? except if i put fish without quarantine!! I can say that the fish were eating healthy and happy only until i put those count of fish all at once, before that all my fish were doing great. i fed them 3 times a day, half moon, emperor.
 
mr_tap_water

mr_tap_water

Well-Known Member
DaveK said:
This is a bit low. It should be about 1.025. That doesn't sound like much, but it's skewing your calcium and magnesium reading by about 14%. That calcium reading of 300 ppm would read about 340 if you corrected the SG. The magnesium reading of 1000 would read about 1136. Your not quite as bad off here as it would seem. It's still low though.

This brings up another question, what brand of salt are you using? Some salts mix to low numbers.
Click to expand...
I would have to disagree with The first part where Fish only systems tend to do better with lower Sg because where are some parasites don't seen to do as well at lower levels and could even go slightly lower with the Sg,
The higher end of Sg more suited to when you start keeping corals.

As for the other part I do agree It Will push your stats up a small amount as stated but only for short length of time if you don't continue water charges or Dosing/calcium reactor of some sort to keep these levels up as I will start to come down daily,If you don't keep them in check by topping up One way or another.


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Aliasger

New Member
well yes, agreed. Because as we go down with salinity chances of parasites are pretty low. However my concern is just that at the moment. I think, with all this that the problem lies only with fish which weren't quarantined, which well led to this. As for pH, now the levels are 8.00 and yes added a bit more salt. Anything else am i missing guys??
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
mr_tap_water said:
I would have to disagree with The first part where Fish only systems tend to do better with lower Sg because where are some parasites don't seen to do as well at lower levels and could even go slightly lower with the Sg,
The higher end of Sg more suited to when you start keeping corals.

As for the other part I do agree It Will push your stats up a small amount as stated but only for short length of time if you don't continue water charges or Dosing/calcium reactor of some sort to keep these levels up as I will start to come down daily,If you don't keep them in check by topping up One way or another.


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Click to expand...

I guess we have to agree that we disagree here. I would consider the idea of keeping fish only system at a lower SG to be an old and obsolete way of doing things. I know some LFS store still do this. The two main parasite diseases in SW are SW ich and SW velvet. Neither are affected by that slight lowering of SG. Having tried this both ways, way back in the BR (Before reefs) days, I found I got better results at 1.025 for SG. Although, I must admit that a lot of other things were done differently back then so there could have been other factors involved.

The critical part of my previous post is that a lower SG skews reading for calcium, alkalinity and magnesium. Fish only systems usually have a very slow rate of calcium depletion, especially compared to a reef system. You really shouldn't have to do too much beyond water changes to maintain it. You don't have anything like corals in the system that grow and consume a lot of calcium in the process.

In the system in question, I think the best approach is to get all the water parameters correct, and then use the calcium reactor to maintain the needed levels. The other serious issue is to treat the sick fish, and this is going to be fairly difficult in a system that large. Removing a fish is going to be difficult, and with parasitic diseases, it's safe to assume if one fish has it, they all have it.
 
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